THUMP—
The world moved slowly.
I wasn't exempt from that, but I could still move according to my own will.
THUMP—
The red light condensed at the muzzle of the Magic Beam Cannon writhed as though it might burst at any moment.
THUMP—
I kicked off the ground with everything I had and closed the distance until I was right in front of Eilon.
THUMP!
It truly was an instant.
Even if made time seem to flow slowly, in reality, not even 0.1 seconds had passed.
The control seat of the Magic Beam Cannon where he sat.
There was a path there through which magical power extended from the core.
This was the Magic Beam Cannon's weakness.
Without hesitation, I swung my hand.
RIP—!
For a very brief moment, space split apart.
If my affinity with Professor Mora had been higher, I could have cut it apart more clearly, but this much was enough.
Once the supply of magical power was cut off, the power dispersed.
Eilon's expression stiffened in shock.
At the same time, his Magic Beam Cannon shattered apart as though collapsing in on itself.
I caught Eilon as he fell onto the wreckage.
"......."
"H-how......."
Words of incomprehension escaped the mouth of a once-in-a-century genius.
Yes, that was the natural reaction.
The Magic Beam Cannon was both a powerful weapon and armor that protected Eilon.
Naturally, even if it had a weakness, he had hidden it thoroughly so no one could ever know.
He had even hidden it from his family.
So of course it was shocking that someone had attacked its single vulnerable point as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
'But I'm the one who wrote that setting.'
Wouldn't it be stranger if I didn't know?
THROB—!
Ah, but apparently I'd broken my hand after pulling that shit barehanded.
A dizzying pain shot through me.
I think my eyes even watered a little.
It hurt enough to make me cry for real.
I couldn't let anyone see the tears, so I hurriedly set Eilon down on the floor, picked up the Magic Power Core, and handed it to him.
With this, he should at least be able to restore the wheelchair's functions.
I didn't have the luxury of supporting him.
Be satisfied with this.
"That concludes today's lecture."
No answer came back.
Afraid they might notice the tears gathering in my eyes, I hurriedly turned away.
***
"......."
No one in the classroom had thought it possible.
That absurd weapon poured out torrents of magical power so intense that it made their skin sting.
How could anyone respond with a sword to that monstrous thing that had surpassed the boundaries of common sense?
Lucas had even been barehanded.
They had thought simply dodging it would be best.
CLATTER—
Yet as though mocking all their doubts, he had succeeded.
And he had done so without his composure slipping even once.
Then, as though disappointed in them for trapping themselves within the limits of their own thinking, he declared the lecture over and turned away without hesitation.
They stared blankly at the place Lucas had left behind.
Everyone was shocked by the unbelievable sight, but the one most shaken was Eilon.
He had never imagined his Magic Beam Cannon could be countered in such a way.
He himself had been aware of the weakness, but his calculations had shown that the probability of exploiting it in practice approached zero.
Even when Lucas told him to fire the Magic Beam Cannon at him, Eilon had first felt a little disappointed at the thought that he might kill, with his own hands, someone who had stirred his intellectual curiosity.
But the result had been the exact opposite.
The thing that had died was his pride.
'Uh, uh, uh.......'
Eilon lowered his head, his body trembling.
'Khk! Pfft, khahaha! What an interesting professor. I'm glad I came to Grasco.'
When Eilon snapped his head back up, his eyes were brimming with curiosity.
There even seemed to be a faint trace of madness in them.
CLATTER—!
He activated the Magic Power Core and restored his wheelchair, then left the classroom with a broad smile.
***
Urgh, ugh!, uuuugh!
Every step sent a throbbing pain cutting deep into my marrow.
Was this how Guan Yu had felt when poison was scraped from his bone while he was still alive?
I felt like I might let out a piercing scream at any moment.
My arms and hands throbbed as though hearts had grown inside them, and damn, they hurt.
But I couldn't scream just because it hurt.
There were too many people around.
They had even recognized who I was and were whispering while looking in my direction.
If I screamed here, my image would go straight into the abyss.
I gritted my teeth and endured it.
Instead, I hurried my steps even more.
'Why the fuck is my office so far away?'
For the first time, I resented just how fucking enormous Grasco's grounds were.
The one fortunate thing was that no one tried to talk to me.
I hurried out of and reached , the faculty building Ronald had introduced before.
I found the room assigned to me and entered after user authentication.
I didn't have time for a tour of the interior.
Where was a sword?
At least something I could swing.
Just once.
I only needed to swing once, and super recovery would heal an injury like this in no time.
I found a rod of roughly suitable length and gripped it tightly.
Just assuming the stance hurt enough to make me want to scream.
But for super recovery to activate, I had to use an obsessively textbook-perfect form.
Gritting my teeth, I held the rod straight.
And then—
SWISH—!
Along with a clear sound cutting through the air, a faint light rippled over my body.
The cold sweat dried immediately, and the pain in my arms vanished as though washed away.
Even the fatigue caused by the pain and the dry eyes from were completely gone.
As expected of super recovery.
Its effect alone is incredible.
I roughly stood the rod back where I'd found it and let myself sink into the chair.
Only once the pain was gone did the scenery of the office finally enter my eyes.
This was where I'd be spending the most time during the semester.
The room was generated to suit the user's tastes, and this was so modern and simple that it almost felt empty.
'If I don't dislike it, maybe this really is my taste.'
KNOCK KNOCK—
As I looked around, a sudden knock came from the door.
There was no reason for another professor to visit.
"Who is it?"
-Um, Professor. I'm Ritt, the assistant assigned to your office.
'Ritt?'
A chill instantly ran down my spine.
In Grasco, there were those who had sold their souls to the Demons, those who would sell them in the future, and even actual Demons.
Like that Ritt outside.
They were hiding after transforming into a human, but their true form was that of a Lesser Demon with combat ability comparable to a professor from the Faculty of Combat Studies.
A bastard like that could kill an ordinary person like me with a snort.
'And that bastard is my assistant?'
The face I'd see most often in a day would be my assistant's.
So why, of all people, did that bastard have to be assigned to my office?
I wanted to ask for someone else, but who knew what that bastard might do to me?
Nothing was scarier than someone who had suddenly lost their job.
I couldn't bring myself to risk it.
-Professor, may I come in?
Crap.
I'd left him standing outside for too long.
"Come in."
The locking spell released with my permission, and Ritt entered the room.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Professor. My name is Ritt. I do not have a family name."
"......Likewise."
"Just as I heard, you truly are remarkably handsome!"
Hearing a compliment like that from a Demon like you doesn't make me happy at all.
Thanks, man.
"But what are you holding?"
"Ah, I prepared several possible research-paper topics in case they might be of help to you, Professor."
Right.
At the end of the day, I was also a professor at an academy called Grasco.
An academy professor had to choose a topic, write a research paper on it, and report it to an academic society.
I'd added that setting because it felt like professors in novels just sat around getting paid for nothing.
I shouldn't have written it.
Damn it.
"Leave them there. I will look through them one by one."
"Yes. Please call me whenever you need anything."
Ritt said it with a gentle smile.
Sorry, but I'd rather not see you unless absolutely necessary.
"I will."
But there was no way I could say that to his face.
I hid my true feelings as thoroughly as possible.
Only after Ritt had completely disappeared from sight, and I'd even checked with to make sure he wasn't listening from outside, did I finally relax.
"I need to raise my meat shields quickly."
If I kept that thing by my side for long, I had a feeling I wouldn't die of natural causes.
'Then the first one I need to raise is.......'
Wouldn't the tank come first?
He needed to be able to protect me at any moment.
And I had chosen the greatest tank in this entire world.
"Before that......."
My eyes fell on the materials Ritt had left behind.
Either way, I still had to write a research paper.
Other professors would actively make use of the assistants under them, but I couldn't.
I didn't want to.
I wanted to avoid stressing Ritt out as much as possible.
Graduate students and assistants already suffered enough stress as it was.
I had no idea how that stress might come back to me once it piled up.
'I have to do it myself.'
I looked through the topics Ritt had prepared.
-The Correlation Between Chivalry and War
-The Dynamics of Noblesse Oblige and Conscription
-Understanding the Use of Magical Power Suitable for Combat
.
.
.
They were topics practically perfect for papers in the Faculty of Combat Studies.
That bastard Ritt...... he was damn good at his job as an assistant.
I'd give him that.
But the topics he'd prepared all had a strange tendency to require a lot of research through an assistant.
In other words, every one of them was the kind of topic that would inevitably increase the amount of time I'd have to deal with Ritt.
That wouldn't do.
I wanted to come to work and see as little of that bastard as possible.
Then what kind of topic would be good?
I lined the materials up neatly, one by one, and examined them.
None of them satisfied me.
'Something that doesn't require an assistant's help at all.'
A topic where I could handle all the related materials myself would be best.
Was there anything like that?
'......There is.'
An idea suddenly came to mind.
Why not start with a completely new topic that didn't require any research materials?
"I've decided."
The topic of my research paper would be 'Combat Patterns Against Demons as Seen from the Situation on the Eastern Front.'
No one had seen what happened there anyway.
I could just make it up.
I planned to properly fill in the story I'd left sketchy during serialization.
Of course, it would be fiction based on imagination.
***
'Hmm.'
After leaving Lucas's office, Ritt reflected on the meeting they had just had.
'So he really is from 'that' race.'
The aura naturally flowing from Lucas made Ritt, a Demon, shrink back.
It felt as though he were a mouse before a cat.
It was instinctive.
'If it weren't for that person's orders....... I might have run away too, like the rabble from the Eastern Front.'
But an order was an order.
He desperately wanted to flee, but if he did, it was obvious his head would come off just like those wretches from the Eastern Front.
It was not easy for a Lesser Demon like him to overcome his instincts.
But perhaps it was precisely because he possessed far more intellect than a Lesser Demon had any right to that 'that person' had entrusted him with such an important mission.
'But...... he was definitely wary of me.'
No one should have known his true identity.
Yet Lucas had been wary of him.
'Did he realize I'm a Demon?'
No.
That couldn't be.
His Polymorph was perfect, and if Lucas really belonged to 'that' race, he would have begun hunting Ritt the instant he realized he was a Demon.
'Does he simply not trust people?'
For now, Ritt would have to keep watching.
His gaze turned toward Lucas's office.
'Still, I hope he doesn't call me very often.'
He had acted completely nonchalant, but the truth was that Lucas terrified him.
Enough that he needed the bathroom even now.
Completely unaware that Lucas was thinking exactly the same thing, Ritt hurried toward the restroom.